Ricky Adkins, 49, was found guilty of three counts of capital murder in 1988 after he allegedly robbed, raped and killed Billie Dean Hamilton, a Birmingham, Ala. real estate agent, according to federal court records.

Hamilton was found partially clothed, stabbed, choked and bludgeoned on the side of the road in St. Clair County in Alabama, according to court records. Adkins was arrested in Georgia after using Hamilton's credit card, but later testified that he didn't rob or rape her, which are elements that made the killing a capital offense.

Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights who has been representing Adkins since about 1990, said that he had cancer on his pancreas and liver.

Bright said Adkins had suffered from diabetes and other health problems, but his cancer was only diagnosed a few weeks ago.

"His prognosis from the start was that he wouldn't recover," Bright said. "He received palliative care before he died. It happened in a very short period of time."

A news release from the Alabama Department of Corrections said the cause of his death is pending autopsy results.

In February 2013, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Adkins after finding that prosecutors illegally discriminated against African-American jurors during the selection process, according to court records.

Adkins and Hamilton are both white, but the federal court found the removal of so many eligible black jurors was discriminatory and violated Adkins' right to equal protection under the law, according to court records.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange's request for a reversal of the decision in October.

St. Clair County Circuit Judge Phil Seay ordered a conference meeting on the status of the case for July 10, but Bright said even if he'd lived, he likely wouldn't have been healthy enough to make it.

Bright said one interesting thing about Adkins' case was that just before it was first tried, the St. Clair County circuit judge retired at the last minute and appointed Robert Austin, a district judge who was running for circuit judge, to preside over the trial about a week before the election.

"The case was used as a political advertisement for Austin, who did manage to squeak out a very narrow victory in the election," Bright said. "This case got a tremendous amount of publicity. This case was used, in my opinion, very inappropriately for political purposes."

St. Clair County's prosecuting attorney Richard Minor could not be reached immediately Tuesday.